|
by Evan Snow
What is a chicken tractor?
A chicken tractor is a portable part-time or full-time shelter for chickens, which provides them with continual fresh forage space (during the growing season) and provides their caretaker with the ability to control and focus their foraging and distribution of their manure. Chicken tractors come in all shapes and sizes and work in a variety of different situations. Most chicken tractors are homemade and the key ingredients are nothing more than creativity and resourcefulness. In its essence, a chicken tractor is a great way to nourish happy healthy chickens, in a manner which is easy to manage and will provide maximum benefit to you.
Chickens can be a simple and easy addition to anyone’s garden or farm. They require minimal care and provide a number of benefits. Chickens can provide humans with food in the form of eggs and meat, fertilizer in the form of their manure, light cultivation through their persistent scratching of the ground, weed and insect control through their foraging efforts, learning opportunities for young and old alike, and can even be great friends. A chicken tractor will serve to enhance and amplify these benefits. The healthiest chickens are free-range chickens because they have fresh and varying food sources along with clean living space. When free-range is not an option, a chicken tractor can provide very near free-range conditions without the risks of chickens eating your desirable plants or your pet dog eating your desirable chickens.
When designing a chicken tractor there are many options and variables to consider. The most common chicken tractor is of the closed-top open-bottom variety. The idea is that you build a structure over top of your chickens that provides them with shelter and protection while still allowing them access to the ground and confining them to a space enclosed on the top and sides. This can be as simple as a giant upside down “laundry basket” where the chickens spend their days and live in a permanent coop. It can also provide full-time residence if it is built with roosting space and nesting boxes. Another option is to build a completely enclosed chicken coop on wheels and provide forage space inside a temporary fence which is placed to create a perimeter around the chicken tractor. A third option is to place a chicken coop in a central location relative to your planting area and then give your chickens access to different sections of your garden on a rotational basis.
To help you decide which system is best for you, here are some questions to consider: How many chickens do you have or want and how much space do you have available? In a smaller space with fewer chickens an open-bottom tractor on wheels that provides all the necessities in the same place is a very good option. You can have as few as 2 or 3 chickens and still reap the benefits of their foraging and fertilizing activities by focusing their efforts in a small area. What do you want from your chickens? Do you just want eggs and a little meat or do you also want to effectively use the fertilizer and other services they provide? If your garden is more production and market oriented you may want to consider a permanent coop with rotational grazing options that will accommodate more chickens and minimize your time and energy inputs. When it comes to portable chicken tractors, the more chickens you have the more chicken tractors you have, and the bigger your chicken tractors are which means moving them on a regular basis requires more time and energy. What resources and materials do you have readily and cheaply available? Don’t go straight to the hardware store. Save yourself some money and look in your yard, garage, and neighborhood before you even start designing. Often a good design can sprout from a readily available material given enough time and creative thought.
My personal experience with chicken tractors has been in building portable shelters with roosting and nesting space included. My chickens live in a straw bale coop in the winter and spend the warm months grazing in the fields and orchard. The first chicken tractor I built is big enough for about 20 chickens and is basically a big box on wheels. The chickens spend the night inside the tractor and forage during the day in a space outlined by a portable fence. The chickens have a nice size area to forage in and are well protected during the night. With a 150 foot fence around the chicken tractor I only have to move it about once every two weeks. The problem with having such a big area to forage is that the chickens can be selective and won’t eat the weeds they aren’t interested in. This system works well in our orchard and for cleaning up larger areas of recently finished crops.
My second chicken tractor is currently under construction and will be the open-bottom type. It is long and narrow, designed to fit over the tops of our three foot wide beds. Among the resources I have available here at the Seeds of Change Farm is a huge stack of retired irrigation pipe. The pipes are thin-walled, light, and long but strong enough to support weight. This is just an example of how an available material morphed into a design idea. My chicken tractor is only three feet wide but twenty feet long so it is big enough to accommodate fifteen chickens.
One of my main concerns in designing my first chicken tractor was providing adequate protection from predators. I also wanted to be able to move it with human power alone. What I didn’t take into consideration enough was weight and ease of mobility. I ended up with an overbuilt box that is very secure but difficult to move. When designing a chicken tractor on wheels it is important to consider the materials used and amounts used. Also consider the placement of heavy elements like roosting space and nesting boxes relative to the wheels, point of contact to the ground, and the handle for moving. The simplest design is to have a handle on one end and two wheels on the other. This creates a big lever arm and it is most efficient to place your heaviest elements close to the wheels or on the opposite side of the wheels from the handle.
Security is an important part of chicken tractor design but you don’t have to sacrifice weight to keep your chickens protected. Assess the threat of predators in your area and design accordingly. Give them a secure place to sleep with solid walls and a solid floor. If you spend most of your time during the day on the same property as your chickens then your presence and quick response to signs of distress should be enough to ward off daytime predators.
To make sure that your chickens are comfortable in the confined space you build for them, provide them with adequate food, water, and shade. Consider ease of access when designing places for supplemental grains and water. If it is easy to give them fresh water every day then you are more likely to do it every day and more likely to have happier, healthier chickens. Shade is a simple, lightweight component of your chicken tractor and will increase the amount of time that your chickens spend foraging each day. Also make sure that you have easy access to any areas that need to be cleaned. A door that opens to the outside makes it easy to clean out bedding and to gather eggs every day.
The definitive guide to chicken tractor design is called Chicken Tractor by Andy Lee. It is the best place to start and provides information on various methods of chicken tractoring and the basics of chicken care. Keep in mind that every chicken tractor is unique and you will find the most success when you design to meet your specific needs. And don’t forget that the best way to learn what your chickens need and want is to observe them. Sit down with your chickens and inquire. Watch and listen and you will learn more through direct experience than you could ever read in an article or book.
Evan Snow
Seeds of Change Research Farm Intern
Photo Captions: (1) Evan's second chicken tractor accommodates 15 chickens and was designed to be placed over three-foot beds. (2) The author's first design was a secure mobile roost which transports the birds to enclosed forage areas.
|